I was interested in a startup in the cassette industry - No major research or anything, just a weekend idea I had once upon a time. Where does one find and market to the cassette fanbase?
Ugh, good question. First of all, here in Europe everyone I know either order blanks from http://www.shop-016.de/shop-audioservice.htm or https://tapeline.info/ or overwrite a bunch of second-hand tapes themselves. It takes dedication to into the tape market but I can point you in three directions.
of course not, I answered some stuff above as well :) And lastly, I just learned it's getting big in the techno scene. It's immensely hard to DJ with tapes though, so I'm pretty sure that's not the reason.
I see tapes on Bandcamp every so often as a limited-edition release of an album. Sadly they're always sold out. There might be a market in managing the stock for bands, and ensuring there's always some available to sell.
The idea of recording on cassette has always appealed to me as a fairly cheap and easy way to record analog tracks at home with some of the older cheap 4-8 track sound boards. I think the limitations I'd set for myself and the change in my workflow vs a laptop with a DAW would have a pretty drastic change on the way my music turns out.
Do you find this is why most artists first choose to record to cassette, or is it because of other things like easier/cheaper distribution?
I'm much more of a tinkerer than any semblance of serious musician but I remember how awesome it was to get a cheap 4-track at a pawn shop in my teens. Until then, my "workaround" had been two boom boxes, some blank tapes, and some splitter cables.
I'd pop a tape into a boom box, record the rhythm guitar part with my little "headphone amp" routed to the aux-in, then rewind. Plug a headphone cable in and split it so the right channel went to headphones and the left channel went into the left aux-in on the second boom box. That way I could record the leads or other parts while listening to the rhythm over headphones.
You could bounce back and forth a couple of times as long as you had some stereo-to-mono adapters but quality degraded quickly. Still, I was a teenager with a $100 guitar, some old boom boxes, and a lot of time.
Still, I can't imagine cassette is easier or cheaper to record and distribute compared to digital or even CD-R today. I'm guessing it has as much to do with "novelty" (which is funny to say about deliberate anachronism) as ease/cost of distribution.
That said, if people dig it, then more power to them. I like picking up vinyl records at Goodwill because they're 4 for a dollar and sometimes I find something that ends up being pretty interesting. I also buy vinyl new releases sometimes because there's something more psychologically pleasing about getting a "thing" for your money instead of a file that could just as easily be duplicated infinitely. I really like how vinyl often comes with a digital download code so I still get a 256-320k/sec mp3 copy for portability and convenience but I also get the big cover art and something tangible. Album art really is something I miss about physical media and vinyl 33's are large enough to offer great, big cover art.
1. A lot artists don't incorporate cassette into the workflow much. Usually people do what they do with a DAW or go to a studio to record. Cassette is mostly used as medium (like CD, vinyl etc). But yes, I do have friends who record directly on cassette. This will sound very rough though (depending on setup), too much even for some lo-fi aficionados.
2. Hipster points. Tapes are very "in" right now. Don't disregard this point. Just like networking is sometimes seen as a sacrifice of your "humanity", so is hipsterism. This is not so. Like it or not, sometimes it's important to go with the flow and play the field.
3. Easy/cheap to make. You do have to record in real-time which sucks when duplicating tapes, but other than that it's way easier to do a few tapes than to go vinyl.
4. People like supporting artists. This can be hard. Many shows are free, everyone downloads, so tapes, even if they can't be played at home, are a way to show your appreciation.
5. Sound. The sound is to me the most important part. Cassette can sound just as good as vinyl with the proper transfer, and introduces some great artifacts like a smoother high-end and a bit of saturation.
6. Professionalism. If you've spent 20-50 hours to create artwork, order tapes, duplicate them (or get someone else to do it) etc etc you show that you're serious about shit. It's a way to create your brand (of course this goes for vinyl etc as well).
7. I'd just like to copy Coldpie's point in regards to vinyl further down in this thread. Go upvote him:
"...for some there's more to listening to music than just listening to music. Going to the shelf and looking over the albums, remembering when you bought each album, who you've played them for, things that were happening while you listened to them. Looking at the cover art or the silly liner art or notes[1]. Noticing markings (or smells...) from previous owners and wondering about them, what they were doing when they bought or listened to the album. Physically placing the album on the turntable and aligning the needle. Listening to the lead-in scratches as you adjust the volume before the music kicks in. Sometimes you get silly lead-out loops[2].
It's just a fun, physical way to listen to music."
I do have plenty of friends who use tape purely in creative capacities i.e. they DJ on tape or do experimental reel-to-reel cassette setups for live shows.
Personally I'd actually love to own a 4-track and do some solo stuff for the same reasons you described in your original post.
Wow, you'd think the NYT would work on an iPad, but after every scroll, it jumps back to the top. I wonder if that obscure news agency would consider testing against my little-used platform
I just bought a new record player - as an oldie I have over 200 vinyls.
Even in the few months since I decided to buy a replacement for my previous equipment I saw the number of models proliferate.
In the end I went for the Ion Air [1] - a turntable with USB and Bluetooth output,
what a crazy idea!
They announced it at CES [2] and I have it on back order so I can't comment on its quality. But it also has line-in -> Bluetooth which was the final selling point for me. I already have a Sony BM10 [3] hooked up to my amp [4].
Even though I've been in tech since the 70's, it's still remarkable that my hi-fi stack is smaller than an 8 Track tape!
The vinyl is a niche market. Very few people buy vinyls or even have a turntable at home. There used to be a market for djs but now it's gone, and the market for non professional is really tiny, it's not a viable option for independent artists , no matter what that article says. No they have a better shot at releasing their music for free on youtube, get some fame then get well paid gigs. Because the recording industry itself is dead.
I really enjoy playing vinyl from time to time; but I'm not going to pretend that they sound better. They don't. Vinyl is all about the touch and the feel, like driving a stick or making bread from scratch.
I agree. I'm just getting into it and building out a home stereo system, but I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I enjoy playing vinyl. It's because of junk like, "The reasons cited [for playing vinyl] are usually a fuller, warmer sound from vinyl’s analog grooves." No, no, no, don't associate me with that stupid audiophile nonsense.
Well, it IS a different sound, and that can be measured objectively (I mean that vinyl players "color" the original recording and how much and in what ways they alter the frequency response and such).
So, it's not like $1000 cables scams etc, where the results are identical.
Now, the subjective part is whether this "warmer" sound is better than the more accurate (better fidelity) high quality digital sound.
For a lot of people, it is -- same way as we tend to like "saturated" images more, despite their colors not being true to the original.
(Of course I'm speaking in general -- if you, mr. outlier, doesn't like saturated pictures, this doesn't apply to your statistical noise self. Not everything is about you.).
Then there's the crackle and static that some (fewer) people also like, but I'm sticking to the basic vinyl "color" here.
Vinyl is very heavily processed. The sound that ends up on the groove has the bass cut by up to 20dB, and the treble boosted by the same amount, because the needle can't move fast enough and far enough to reproduce a flat frequency response. (Google "RIAA curve" for details.)
The processing is reversed on playback in the preamp, but there's always a mismatch between the source EQ and the preamp EQ, so there's always some tonal distortion. And because the bass gets boosted so much there's added waveform distortion which increases with bass frequencies and makes the bass thicker.
Many turntables also have pitch instabilities.
Hence "vinyl sound."
So no - it's not even remotely accurate. Add scratches, crackles, and pops, groove deterioration - the needle causes enough friction to melt the plastic in the groove - and other artefacts, and it's really more of a lifestyle/collector thing than anything to do with accuracy.
Personally I have enough physical stuff already, and I want less, not more. So being able to store all my music on a hard drive in FLAC format makes me thankful the industry moved beyond vinyl.
But if you wanted that type of sound, you could record it digitally. There is no reason why that type of sound has to come from a vinyl analog record. Is there ?
And people DO do that: using several compression, old mikes, tube amps, EQing, recording techniques, etc to make digital releases sound like vinyl/low-fi of yore.
In fact one of the hottest selling audio plugin categories are "tape saturation" (which mimic 2-inch tape distortions, not that far from mimicking vinul).
When it comes to vinyl, there's also other factors: the patina (crackle) etc, adds connection to the times you've played the record, the fragility and tactile feel, plus it's a physical, collectible artifact. Plus, at least for now, the fashion factor.
While a audio-file collection will be useless in 20 years (already is with things like Spotify giving access to most music), a good condition LP will mostly increase in price. In 50 years? A current pressing could be worth $200 or more (especially since most bands do small 1000 units or less vinul pressings).
I get that it's fashion. It just surprises me, given there is no reason for it, as far as the actual quality of the signal goes. I mean it's one thing if you are collecting antique vinyl from the 1930s or something. But collecting modern recordings just seems bizarre to me. I am not judging, I am just amused.
Also, Spotify doesn't give you the same quality sound as an audiofile collection of CDs, due to compression
>I get that it's fashion. It just surprises me, given there is no reason for it, as far as the actual quality of the signal goes.
I think one way to see it is that it being in vinyl (with all the romantic, old-music-industry, analog etc ideas it conveys) is also part of the signal.
As in, the signal is not the pure musical signal, but also the cultural one (the vinyl being emotional, nostalgic, romanticized, fashionished, fetishised, etc).
>Also, Spotify doesn't give you the same quality sound as an audiofile collection of CDs, due to compression
That's just a matter of time and better broadband connections. For most people, given their speakers/headphones quality, it's more than enough.
To try and explain....it's like the difference between fake "stressed" furniture which inside is just mashed up Ikea woodchip with a veneer stuck to it and the real deal.
There's also the joy and relaxation of kicking back and watching the vinyl spin on the table whilst playing, it's mesmerizing and hypnotic.
I guess that the world is split between fetishists (who enjoy the things for multiple levels) and functionalists (who enjoy them only for their core utility).
well, I enjoy album art and browsing for music and remembering where I got it - all the reasons cited for buying vinyl. So, it's not just the pure functionality for me, either. But you can get all those same things with CDs as well. So, I do find the vinyl fashion perplexing.
I've been thinking about your question. I suppose one appeal for me is that I understand how vinyl works. Putting a CD in isn't that much different from hitting Play on your MP3 player: you queue up your song, hit play, and music just happens behind the scenes, you can't watch it. But with vinyl, you can see it in action. I occasionally just sit there and watch the needle and cartridge and tone arm move across the surface of the record, imagining how the tiny vibrations of the needle are transformed into electrical amplitude, increased by the amp and played out of speakers. It's fun and, today, novel to be able to understand a whole system like that and observe each part doing its task.
I think you need to find someone who has a decent vinyl collection with a nice listening setup and go visit them for an evening, have a few glasses of wine or a beer and listen, handle and chill with the records...then you might understand.
If you still don't get it then you probably also don't get why people run vintage/classic cars (why bother when - to paraphrase - you can get the same things as running a modern compact saloon as well - both get you from A to B, the modern compact probably more reliably so) or operate steam engines or collect stamps.
In my home office I have a fully working refurbished GPO model 746 rotary dial telephone [0][1], I use it all the time if I'm sitting at my desk. Sure I have a DECT and VOIP handsets that do many more and very clever things but I enjoy using that old phone. I like "dialing" numbers on the rotary dialer, I like the sound of its ring, I like the clunk as I replace the handset, I like the faint click it makes when you lift the handset. It's also ergonomically better than most modern phones because the handset part fits better around my neck and chin so I can talk away and have both hands on my keyboard.
I'm mostly a functionalist (to quote coldtea) but there are little things in life I enjoy for their aesthetic (as I perceive it) and nostalgic pleasures, in particular electronics and audio kit from the 70's (I was born in the late 60's :) )
You've answered your own question: because you get to remember where/when you got it, you get to search for it in a store, you get to carry it home, you get to physically feel/remove/examine/play it, you get to see the 12x12 art (not some 300x300 png), you might even get a cool colored record. There's way more to record buying and collecting than just vintage
You can do all those things you mentioned with a CD, no? So why use an inferior format like Vinyl ? I am not talking about vintage vinyl. I am talking about buying brand new vinyl.
CDs can be nicely packaged, but LPs are larger and seem to get more interesting and elaborate packaging. For example, a gatefold 2xLP is just a nicer object to me than the standard 2xCD case (and many double LPs are single CDs to boot). So on average, a nicer object. They usually come with a download card nowadays so you get the digital version too.
Another reason for me at least is that a lot of the vinyl I buy is directly from bands at their shows. In that case I'm getting the souvenir and I'm giving back something directly to the artists. It might just be gas money to get to the next town, but it's more than they'll ever see from Spotify.
Vinyl's awkwardness and the rituals around it are a way of expressing dedication to music and expression dedication to music is a way of differentiating yourself.
Vinyl use (or often just purchase and displat) has become the mark of someone who takes music seriously / passionately. My experience is that many people, especially the young like to signal that way.
So you're taking the time to build out a more cumbersome audio system but don't want anyone to think you are putting forth the effort because you might enjoy how it sounds better?
It's the glorification of vinyl as a superior format for audio storage and reproduction that I take issue with. It is mathematically inferior to modern audio recording techniques. If you're concerned about quality and want a "warmer" sound, that should be achieved by some equalizer or other post-processing stage after retrieving the audio from a high quality storage format. It shouldn't be achieved by ignoring the last 50 years of audio recording improvements.
Vinyl is fun for lots of reasons, but it is not a superior format for storing audio, just like $10,000 HDMI cables and magic audiophile crystals are not improvements.
I've lost countless audio recordings due to hard drive malfunctions, bad data storage practices - misplacing them and overwriting the hd, importing cds and forgetting to name the resulting audio files then later accidentally deleting them and all sorts of stuff that you can definitely call user error, but user error with a record needs to involve power tools to be serious. For the most part all my old records are still around and playable. In that sense, it's proven itself a superior format for storing audio in my life.
I agree as far as the physical format goes, but the loudness war is somewhat less entrenched in vinyl. Nearly all CDs and digital download versions of songs are released with mastering that has heavily compressed the audio to make it louder and heavily reduced the dynamic range - this isn't a digital format issue, this is actually lost information about the audio of the song because the volume has been uniformly boosted to the point there is not much difference in dynamics
A lot of the smaller labels, and some of the larger ones, will do a vinyl specific master that hasn't gone through this compression process and has the full dynamics of the original recording. Even with the coloration, I find these almost always sound better than the lower dynamic range versions. So, basically, despite vinyl being an inferior format, humans have managed to fuck things up enough that it can sound better in spite of being a bad physical medium for audio.
There is the case where its nearly impossible to find the original master digitally, which I'd argue the the original vinyl pressing sounds "better" for some albums.
Totally unrelated to the format itself though, but just a thought as to why I buy some of my favorite older records on vinyl because they "sound better".
There's also the vinyl-only availability of a lot of recordings, especially if you're interested in niche pre-80/90s genres. I collect private press / avant jazz from the 60s and 70s along with some soul/funk, and while there are reissues available for some recordings in a lot of cases your only option for a good quality copy is finding an original copy of the vinyl record.
The 'niche' collecting part of vinyl records is really interesting and I wish someone would do a good story on that instead of the "vinyl's not dead!" approach.
(self plug: I wrote/run https://gripsweat.com which tracks auctions and sales so if you're curious about high-dollar niche records it's a good listening / browsing resource.)
Look up the "Loudness Wars" if you haven't heard of it yet. The TL;DR of it is that, yes, CD's are technically waaaay better than vinyls, with a much higher dynamic range, but very often (especially with mainstream music) they are mixed much worse than vinyls.
Vinyl is a fun format. I've been picking up records for listening recently. One fun thing I noticed is most records have some hand-written notes along the inside edge of the record. Usually some album ID code, maybe a date, or some other markings I can't identify.
When I first noticed these, I thought, wow, it's crazy that someone had to mark up all these individual records as they were pressed. I can't believe how long that must have taken. Then I realized, obviously, that the master record had the original markings, and that entire record was stamped into the production run, including those hand-written markings. So some record engineer's handwriting survived onto thousands or millions of duplicated records, decades into the future, into my living room, where I noticed them. Neat! I wonder who that guy was...
I love finding old records that used to be my grandpa's. Seeing his handwriting on the records on liner notes makes me feel like i'm sharing the experience with him. Digital can never replicate that.
I picked up a bundle off craigslist from some 20-something guy a while ago, and a fair few of them have "Deb" scrawled on the cover and on some labels. All of the Deb albums are in great condition, some with the plastic wrap still on, slit to slide the record out, no dust, no scratches. I don't know who Deb is or was, but my thanks to her for taking care of her records!
> Vinyl is a fun format. I've been picking up records for listening recently. One fun thing I noticed is most records have some hand-written notes along the inside edge of the record. Usually some album ID code, maybe a date, or some other markings I can't identify.
The argument between Vinyl / Cassette / CD / MP3; I file under "narcissim of small differences". As I get older I find that emphasis on mindful listening reveals a richer range of sounds than any music source is able to match.
So, I totally see why uncompressed music sounds better than compressed music ( MP3, Spotify, Pandora, etc. ) But, I don't understand the point of vinyl vs CDs. Nyquist theorem says you can fully recover an analog signal with digital sampling, if you sample frequently enough. So, there is no reason to have analog music. Am I missing something ?
I'm someone that buys quite a few vinyl records, and almost all of my reasons are psychological. I like supporting artists, and buying records give me a way to do that and get something physical in return. I like having the big album art and putting on a record makes me much more likely to listen to entire albums instead of just random songs. Plus, putting on a record is an intentional act which puts me in a good mental state for listening to music. With digital download codes, I have no real reason to buy CDs as a good percentage of bands offer their music digitally in any format I'd want. CDs would just be something I'd burn to an mp3 player and throw in a closet somewhere.
Plus, they're fun to collect. A lot of releases will have different colored vinyl or special added features to the album.
Where's the mention of digital sampling? If the pathway from the pickup on my tonearm through the pre-amp to amp to speakers is totally analogue, such my own setup, I don't care about or involve digital sampling.
I can sort of see your point if you're running a turntable with USB output to rip your vinyl. But for most cases that's for folks who have some old vinyl they want to convert without shelling out for a digital copy, we're happy to put up with a small loss of fidelity (which is barely noticeable). There's also times where there is no official digital copy available, or ever will be, I have a few gems in my collection like that.
In terms of audio quality, you are 100% correct. But for some there's more to listening to music than just listening to music. Going to the shelf and looking over the albums, remembering when you bought each album, who you've played them for, things that were happening while you listened to them. Looking at the cover art or the silly liner art or notes[1]. Noticing markings (or smells...) from previous owners and wondering about them, what they were doing when they bought or listened to the album. Physically placing the album on the turntable and aligning the needle. Listening to the lead-in scratches as you adjust the volume before the music kicks in. Sometimes you get silly lead-out loops[2].
What nonsense, I hope he was misquoted.. Like the linked video says, he bought them in Chicago from Joell Hays, another vinyl junkie (and all-around nice guy) that held on to them for a decade, but couldn't get the funds together to restore them all.
I can't understand why every story about vinyl's resurgence needs to make the story into some sort of mythic "rediscovery". My label's been putting out vinyl for years, the only difference is that now there's a 6-month waiting list at the plant. :)
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 131 ms ] threadLet me know if you have questions about the format, I run a small tape label (scalatapes.bandcamp.com).
1. The ambient scene: http://fangsandarrows.com/ was a great community, similar to HN crowd. Serious people. Not sure if it's down for good, here's their bandcamp: https://fangsandarrows.bandcamp.com/
2. Vaporwave: If you don't know it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporwave here's a label https://dreamcatalogue.bandcamp.com/
3. Post-punk / post rock / synth pop (the dark stuff like John Maus) etc. Concrete basement shows etc.
https://opaltapes.bandcamp.com/ is a great label (I really like Huerco S. and Basic House)
What's your email address? Email me first if you prefer to stay anonymous - My email is in my profile :)
Recently:
https://ogresound.bandcamp.com/album/194
Do you find this is why most artists first choose to record to cassette, or is it because of other things like easier/cheaper distribution?
I'd pop a tape into a boom box, record the rhythm guitar part with my little "headphone amp" routed to the aux-in, then rewind. Plug a headphone cable in and split it so the right channel went to headphones and the left channel went into the left aux-in on the second boom box. That way I could record the leads or other parts while listening to the rhythm over headphones.
You could bounce back and forth a couple of times as long as you had some stereo-to-mono adapters but quality degraded quickly. Still, I was a teenager with a $100 guitar, some old boom boxes, and a lot of time.
Still, I can't imagine cassette is easier or cheaper to record and distribute compared to digital or even CD-R today. I'm guessing it has as much to do with "novelty" (which is funny to say about deliberate anachronism) as ease/cost of distribution.
That said, if people dig it, then more power to them. I like picking up vinyl records at Goodwill because they're 4 for a dollar and sometimes I find something that ends up being pretty interesting. I also buy vinyl new releases sometimes because there's something more psychologically pleasing about getting a "thing" for your money instead of a file that could just as easily be duplicated infinitely. I really like how vinyl often comes with a digital download code so I still get a 256-320k/sec mp3 copy for portability and convenience but I also get the big cover art and something tangible. Album art really is something I miss about physical media and vinyl 33's are large enough to offer great, big cover art.
1. A lot artists don't incorporate cassette into the workflow much. Usually people do what they do with a DAW or go to a studio to record. Cassette is mostly used as medium (like CD, vinyl etc). But yes, I do have friends who record directly on cassette. This will sound very rough though (depending on setup), too much even for some lo-fi aficionados.
2. Hipster points. Tapes are very "in" right now. Don't disregard this point. Just like networking is sometimes seen as a sacrifice of your "humanity", so is hipsterism. This is not so. Like it or not, sometimes it's important to go with the flow and play the field.
3. Easy/cheap to make. You do have to record in real-time which sucks when duplicating tapes, but other than that it's way easier to do a few tapes than to go vinyl.
4. People like supporting artists. This can be hard. Many shows are free, everyone downloads, so tapes, even if they can't be played at home, are a way to show your appreciation.
5. Sound. The sound is to me the most important part. Cassette can sound just as good as vinyl with the proper transfer, and introduces some great artifacts like a smoother high-end and a bit of saturation.
6. Professionalism. If you've spent 20-50 hours to create artwork, order tapes, duplicate them (or get someone else to do it) etc etc you show that you're serious about shit. It's a way to create your brand (of course this goes for vinyl etc as well).
7. I'd just like to copy Coldpie's point in regards to vinyl further down in this thread. Go upvote him: "...for some there's more to listening to music than just listening to music. Going to the shelf and looking over the albums, remembering when you bought each album, who you've played them for, things that were happening while you listened to them. Looking at the cover art or the silly liner art or notes[1]. Noticing markings (or smells...) from previous owners and wondering about them, what they were doing when they bought or listened to the album. Physically placing the album on the turntable and aligning the needle. Listening to the lead-in scratches as you adjust the volume before the music kicks in. Sometimes you get silly lead-out loops[2]. It's just a fun, physical way to listen to music."
I guess the difference is that I make music as a hobby, and do it almost entirely for myself.
Personally I'd actually love to own a 4-track and do some solo stuff for the same reasons you described in your original post.
Even in the few months since I decided to buy a replacement for my previous equipment I saw the number of models proliferate.
In the end I went for the Ion Air [1] - a turntable with USB and Bluetooth output, what a crazy idea!
They announced it at CES [2] and I have it on back order so I can't comment on its quality. But it also has line-in -> Bluetooth which was the final selling point for me. I already have a Sony BM10 [3] hooked up to my amp [4].
Even though I've been in tech since the 70's, it's still remarkable that my hi-fi stack is smaller than an 8 Track tape!
[1] http://www.ionaudio.com/products/details/airlp
[2] http://www.ionaudio.com/news/press-releases/new-ion-air-lp-b...
[3] http://www.aptx.com/product-low-latency/sony-bluetoothr-musi...
[4] http://www.amazon.com/Danibos-TA2021B-Integrated-Tripath-Amp...
So, it's not like $1000 cables scams etc, where the results are identical.
Now, the subjective part is whether this "warmer" sound is better than the more accurate (better fidelity) high quality digital sound.
For a lot of people, it is -- same way as we tend to like "saturated" images more, despite their colors not being true to the original.
(Of course I'm speaking in general -- if you, mr. outlier, doesn't like saturated pictures, this doesn't apply to your statistical noise self. Not everything is about you.).
Then there's the crackle and static that some (fewer) people also like, but I'm sticking to the basic vinyl "color" here.
The processing is reversed on playback in the preamp, but there's always a mismatch between the source EQ and the preamp EQ, so there's always some tonal distortion. And because the bass gets boosted so much there's added waveform distortion which increases with bass frequencies and makes the bass thicker.
Many turntables also have pitch instabilities.
Hence "vinyl sound."
So no - it's not even remotely accurate. Add scratches, crackles, and pops, groove deterioration - the needle causes enough friction to melt the plastic in the groove - and other artefacts, and it's really more of a lifestyle/collector thing than anything to do with accuracy.
Personally I have enough physical stuff already, and I want less, not more. So being able to store all my music on a hard drive in FLAC format makes me thankful the industry moved beyond vinyl.
In fact one of the hottest selling audio plugin categories are "tape saturation" (which mimic 2-inch tape distortions, not that far from mimicking vinul).
E.g.: https://www.u-he.com/cms/satin
When it comes to vinyl, there's also other factors: the patina (crackle) etc, adds connection to the times you've played the record, the fragility and tactile feel, plus it's a physical, collectible artifact. Plus, at least for now, the fashion factor.
While a audio-file collection will be useless in 20 years (already is with things like Spotify giving access to most music), a good condition LP will mostly increase in price. In 50 years? A current pressing could be worth $200 or more (especially since most bands do small 1000 units or less vinul pressings).
Also, Spotify doesn't give you the same quality sound as an audiofile collection of CDs, due to compression
I think one way to see it is that it being in vinyl (with all the romantic, old-music-industry, analog etc ideas it conveys) is also part of the signal.
As in, the signal is not the pure musical signal, but also the cultural one (the vinyl being emotional, nostalgic, romanticized, fashionished, fetishised, etc).
>Also, Spotify doesn't give you the same quality sound as an audiofile collection of CDs, due to compression
That's just a matter of time and better broadband connections. For most people, given their speakers/headphones quality, it's more than enough.
There's also the joy and relaxation of kicking back and watching the vinyl spin on the table whilst playing, it's mesmerizing and hypnotic.
If you still don't get it then you probably also don't get why people run vintage/classic cars (why bother when - to paraphrase - you can get the same things as running a modern compact saloon as well - both get you from A to B, the modern compact probably more reliably so) or operate steam engines or collect stamps.
In my home office I have a fully working refurbished GPO model 746 rotary dial telephone [0][1], I use it all the time if I'm sitting at my desk. Sure I have a DECT and VOIP handsets that do many more and very clever things but I enjoy using that old phone. I like "dialing" numbers on the rotary dialer, I like the sound of its ring, I like the clunk as I replace the handset, I like the faint click it makes when you lift the handset. It's also ergonomically better than most modern phones because the handset part fits better around my neck and chin so I can talk away and have both hands on my keyboard.
I'm mostly a functionalist (to quote coldtea) but there are little things in life I enjoy for their aesthetic (as I perceive it) and nostalgic pleasures, in particular electronics and audio kit from the 70's (I was born in the late 60's :) )
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPO_telephones#Type_746
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPO_telephones#/media/File:GPO...
Another reason for me at least is that a lot of the vinyl I buy is directly from bands at their shows. In that case I'm getting the souvenir and I'm giving back something directly to the artists. It might just be gas money to get to the next town, but it's more than they'll ever see from Spotify.
What is art's core utility?
No, but it can still be quite pleasant. Same way we like saturated constrasty pics or even distorted guitars.
>Personally I have enough physical stuff already, and I want less, not more.
OTOH, a vinyl collection makes for a nice rustic touch to a mostly empty, mostly-digital, minimalist house.
Vinyl use (or often just purchase and displat) has become the mark of someone who takes music seriously / passionately. My experience is that many people, especially the young like to signal that way.
Vinyl is fun for lots of reasons, but it is not a superior format for storing audio, just like $10,000 HDMI cables and magic audiophile crystals are not improvements.
A lot of the smaller labels, and some of the larger ones, will do a vinyl specific master that hasn't gone through this compression process and has the full dynamics of the original recording. Even with the coloration, I find these almost always sound better than the lower dynamic range versions. So, basically, despite vinyl being an inferior format, humans have managed to fuck things up enough that it can sound better in spite of being a bad physical medium for audio.
Totally unrelated to the format itself though, but just a thought as to why I buy some of my favorite older records on vinyl because they "sound better".
The 'niche' collecting part of vinyl records is really interesting and I wish someone would do a good story on that instead of the "vinyl's not dead!" approach.
(self plug: I wrote/run https://gripsweat.com which tracks auctions and sales so if you're curious about high-dollar niche records it's a good listening / browsing resource.)
(OP and avid film shooter/Apple Music listener)
When I first noticed these, I thought, wow, it's crazy that someone had to mark up all these individual records as they were pressed. I can't believe how long that must have taken. Then I realized, obviously, that the master record had the original markings, and that entire record was stamped into the production run, including those hand-written markings. So some record engineer's handwriting survived onto thousands or millions of duplicated records, decades into the future, into my living room, where I noticed them. Neat! I wonder who that guy was...
I love finding old records that used to be my grandpa's. Seeing his handwriting on the records on liner notes makes me feel like i'm sharing the experience with him. Digital can never replicate that.
A PORKY PRIME CUT.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Peckham
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_number
http://www.welt.de/print/die_welt/hamburg/article126865000/D...
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_difference...
Mine's better because it's (slightly) different than yours.
Plus, they're fun to collect. A lot of releases will have different colored vinyl or special added features to the album.
Precisely this. "That difficult third track on the B side"...which turns out to be a total gem, yet might go unlistened and never appreciated.
I can sort of see your point if you're running a turntable with USB output to rip your vinyl. But for most cases that's for folks who have some old vinyl they want to convert without shelling out for a digital copy, we're happy to put up with a small loss of fidelity (which is barely noticeable). There's also times where there is no official digital copy available, or ever will be, I have a few gems in my collection like that.
It's just a fun, physical way to listen to music.
[1] The liner notes in Andrew Gold's "What's wrong with this picture?" was a recent highlight for me http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=1838376
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unusual_types_of_gramophone_re...
What nonsense, I hope he was misquoted.. Like the linked video says, he bought them in Chicago from Joell Hays, another vinyl junkie (and all-around nice guy) that held on to them for a decade, but couldn't get the funds together to restore them all.
I can't understand why every story about vinyl's resurgence needs to make the story into some sort of mythic "rediscovery". My label's been putting out vinyl for years, the only difference is that now there's a 6-month waiting list at the plant. :)